


Vignettes in Blue

by Rivestra



Category: Undercover Blues (1993)
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life, spy parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivestra/pseuds/Rivestra
Summary: Four times Jeff laughed and one time he didn't.





	Vignettes in Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tiriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiriel/gifts).



> **Author's Notes:** Happy Yuletide, [Tiriel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiriel). I hope it's a wonderful season filled with delights. A million thanks to my poor, embattled beta, _youknowwhoyouare_. I couldn't do it with you, and I wouldn't want to try!
> 
> **Disclaimer:** Written purely for fun; no profit or harm intended. All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners.

_**~*~*~*~*~Barely Four Years Old~*~*~*~*~** _

Stance loose but formal, the man inclined his head and asked, "And how did you learn of my school, Mr. Blue?"

Jeff twitched. He had not yet introduced himself. Jane didn't react at all, involved as she was in the intricacies of jacket and backpack removal from their 4-year-old's wiggling body (and likely complicit besides).

"Oh," Jeff drawled, "we asked around at work, and your name kept coming up."

Jane stood and shot him a sharp look. He narrowed his eyes at her--he knew she'd actually been paying attention!

Hands on their daughter's shoulders, Jane said respectfully, "Your reputation is known far and wide, Sensei." She gestured at Janey as she stepped away from her. "Are you willing to consider taking on a new student?"

The gi-clad man started to circle Jane Louise. Jane Louise turned with him slowly, expression wary. He said nothing. Miracle of miracles, Jane Louise also said nothing.

After his third circuit around her, the man said to her, "I am known as Takenaka. If I accept you as a student, you will call me _Sensei._ It means teacher."

Janey looked toward them. Jane stayed still, but Jeff nodded encouragingly from behind his wife. Voice steady, their daughter said, "Hello, Sensei. My name is Jane-Louise. It's nice to meet you."

Takenaka circled Janey again, Janey again turned with him. He stopped when he faced Jane and asked, "No formal training?"

"No, Sensei," Jane replied, still stiff and formal. "We had hoped to avoid the need for a few more years, but..." She shrugs, _"Dansei wa kami no warai o keikaku suru."_

And she said _he_ was the show-off. Jeff had to stretch for his Japanese: _Men plan, god laughs._

Takenaka grimaces at Jane then resumes his circling. "And you, child? Do you wish to learn?"

"Yes, but..." Janey hesitates.

Stopping to stare at her, Takenaka cocks his head. "But what, child?"

She looks back toward Jane and Jeff, expression conflicted.

"The student must always answer promptly and clearly or there can be no teaching," he intones.

"I..." Janey wrinkles her nose and turns to look back at Takenaka. "I watch a lot of _Naruto_ with my dad."

Surprised into a bark of laughter, Takenaka offered, "Well then, come at me child," and gestured her near.

Janey shook her head. "No," she said confidently, "you come at me."

Jeff winced. Jane was pointedly not looking at him, and he could feel it through his pores.

Eyebrows raised in clear amusement, Takenaka asked, "Are you ready?" At her nod, he closed the distance between them in a well-telegraphed, slow-motion strike.

With her left hand, Janey grabbed the hand he was practically gifting her as if she were going to try and throw him. Then, quick as the lightning bug Jeff sometimes called her, she slammed her heel into Takenaka's instep and her right fist into his balls, landing both attacks solidly.

He felt Jane beside him, watching with approval as the man reigned back his automatic defenses. Jeff's honest approval came when the man chose to drop like a sack of potatoes and groan, "Owww," dramatically for Janey.

They both watched with approval as Janey bent over Takenaka in concern. She looked up at Jeff; he let his laughter loose, and she joined both him and her new Sensei, who still writhed on the ground hamming it up around his own laughter.

Jane did not watch Jeff with approval, but they could talk about _that_ later.

 

_**~*~*~*~*~Twelve Years Old~*~*~*~*~** _

If the man kept pacing like that, he was going to wear a hole in his carpet. Sighing so quietly that Jeff alone could hear, Jane leaned in, jutting her breasts forward and opening up her body language. Sweetly, she asked again, "Why don't you just tell us what happened, Principal Nimroi?"

Nimroi tugged at his cheap sport coat and turned to look at her, his expression softening. Jeff turned to look at her, too, expectation settling into his bones, mind calculating the angles. Jane Louise turned abruptly away from them all, defiance ratcheting ever-upward as she crossed her arms and glared out the window. Jane counted under her breath, "...two... three... four..."

"Why don't you ask _Dad_ what happened?" Jane Louise exploded on cue. "He wasn't there either, but at least he has a br..."

"...bracing respect for your temper and for how hard it is to make you this angry," Jeff seamlessly interrupted, smile wide and aimed at the Principal, fake as a three-dollar bill. He swivelled his head and turned it toward Jane Louise, never faltering. "Right, sweetheart?"

Jane Louise didn't answer, but Jane said, "They have a point," in her reasonable voice. "Can we get the coach in here?" She flashed her own pearly whites at the principal, and he flinched. "Let's hear what he has to say," she added, dialing it back the barest notch with visible effort.

Jeff's lips twitched when she glared at him, but he fought the grin off, content in the knowledge that he was clearly rubbing off on her.

Oblivious to their marital hijinx, the principal prevaricated, "He's in the hall, but we'd both prefer to conduct..."

"Coach!" Jeff shouted jovially as he flung open the door. A man with the physique of a body builder left to rot spilled into the room.

Jane, who had turned toward the window to hide her expression, caught the ghost of a truly malevolent smile on their daughter's lips. Her eyes danced in return, and she swivelled to greet the coach with the full force of her training.

"Coach Impote?" she asked, hand outstretched.

"Im- _por_ -te," he corrected crossly, but he took her hand. "And I don't appreciate..."

"Don't worry, Coach," Jeff cut in smarmily, moving in to block the man's only exit. "We'll let you get back to your eavesdropping soon." Conspiratorially, Jeff added, "Or maybe you prefer peeping?" The man's eyes were crossing as Jane treated his fingers like so much wood for her vise.

"We're just trying to figure out what's going on," Jeff said reasonably, prying Jane's hand open and bringing it up to hold in his own before she broke the shitstain's fingers. He patted the back of it affectionately and brought it up to his lips to brush a kiss across her knuckles.

Body loose and voice light, he asked "Janey, why don't you put us all out of our misery and tell us what Mr. Impote, here, did?" At his tone, Jane Louise finally turned back around to look at them. The same tone made Jane twitch toward a non-existent gun in the thigh holster she hadn't strapped on today.

"Daddy..." Jane Louise said, drawing out the syllables of it for all the world like any normal 12-year-old girl.

"Out with it sugarplum," he replied, eyes locked on his daughter as he drew his wife down to perch with him on the edge of the principal's desk, blocking the man's path to his seat and leaving him stranded.

"Your daughter was disappointed when she didn't make the team," Coach Impote blurted out, "and she used inappropriate language!"

Over him, voice clear and firm and very little at all like the tone she'd just used on her father, Jane Louise said, "You mean after I wasn't allowed to even _try out_ for the team." She stalked up to Impote and, if his visible twitch was anything to go by, just barely stopped herself from poking the man in the chest with her index finger. (Jeff could almost sympathize--her index finger was pointy.)

"You mean," she continued angrily, "after I led your third string into a total _beat down_ of your starting lineup..."

Still puffed with his own importance (and utterly oblivious to the three angry predators in the room), Impote cut her off, "That game wasn't a sanctioned..."

"It was ref'd by your own assistant coach!" Janey shouted back.

"It wasn't a sanctioned try-out, young lady!" he roared at her, advancing, only to find Jane's own index finger at his chest, just where his windpipe started to go deep. His wince made it clear that Janey hadn't inherited her finger strength from Jeff.

"Now that's enough," Jane growled, still smiling sweetly. She backed him away from their daughter and into the wall with that finger.

Pinned like a mounted blowfly specimen, Impote looked frantically toward Jeff, his eyes silently asking, "Can't you control your woman?!?"

Jeff shrugged dramatically, letting his grin widen to epic proportions. "Just be glad she's only armed with her finger."

Crossing her arms angrily, Jane Louise said, "Let him go, mother. He can't talk with you threatening his airway."

"He can't yell at my daughter, either," Jane said, but she dropped her hand. Crossing her arms in entirely deliberate mirroring of her daughter, she drawled, "You were saying?"

The idiot again looked to Jeff for support, as if expecting that, by virtue of their common maleness, Jeff would throw in with him.

Feeling late to the party, Jeff crossed his arms, too, and threw in an eyebrowy scowl for good measure.

Jane Louise looked at her arms, sighed and uncrossed them in disgust, scrubbing at her face with her hands like it might provide emotional distance from her parents. It didn't seem to work for her, but she powered on. "He," and the man actually flinched when she pointed at him, "said I don't have the right body type for football."

Jeff swept the room with his eyes as he waited for the ball to drop. He half expected to find the principal standing in a puddle with his nose to the wall, but the man had unexpectedly managed to reclaim his chair. They were getting soft.

When nothing but a glare followed, Jeff prompted, "So what'd you say?"

"I asked if it was because I didn't have..." and she paused, looking around the room for the first time in the entire meeting before bringing her eyes back to Jeff.

Jeff sighed, wishing he could scrub at his own face. "A penis?" he asked matter of factly.

She looked down at her shoes and shook her head.

"Worse?" he croaked in disbelief. "What?"

She mumbled something inaudibly, still looking down at her feet.

"Jane Louise," Jane chided firmly, "you know your father can't hear you when you talk to your toes."

Head whipping up, Jan Louise looked Jeff straight in the eye and spat out, "Male genitalia."

"Janey!" Jeff said with a wince. Jane Louise's glare reminded him enough of her mother's to shut him down quickly. She was right, anyway, they'd have that talk later.

Jane's mouth opened, but Jeff widened his eyes pointedly at his wife (who only let the grumpy flash briefly in her eyes before tucking it back out of sight) and then turned toward Impote again.

Mock serious, hands outstretched in a dramatic and equally mock placating gesture, Jeff asked, "Let me get this straight." He paused there for his best _reassuring_ smile and cocked his head. "Are you objecting because she used big words?"

In a tone that would have Janey cracking up in other circumstances, Jane admonished, "Now, we've talked about this before, Jane Louise. You know you can't use anatomically correct words when dealing with..." with visible effort, Jane settled on "civil servants," and a too toothy smile.

"Exactly," Jeff confirmed. "A man like this only understands a little dick." His grin could only be described as shit-eating, but it deflated when he caught his wife's glare.

Barrelling over the man's sputtering, Jane turned to the principal and asked reasonably, "So, did you disqualify my daughter because she has a vagina or because she has a big vocabulary?"

From behind his desk, the principal started to choke.

"Either way," she continued, "I think we've got a case for the school board." Looking over at Jeff, she added offhandedly, "Or we could give Senator Williamson a call. We need to RSVP for next week, anyway."

"Now, now," the Principal placated. "There's no need to be placing any calls!" He turned to Impote, "I'm sure Coach Importe will agree that your girl should get a try-out," and glared at the other man until he got a nod.

"Well, then, that's settled, isn't it!" Jeff didn't ask. "Good talk, Principal Nimrod!" Jeff popped up out of his indolent lean to pump the dazed man's hand with far too much gusto.

Jeff threw, "We'll see you at the games, Coach!" over his shoulder as he ushered his girls out the door.

\-------

Janey turned back into a teenager as they made their way out to the car. "Dad, I can't believe you said that!" She thwacked his arm in emphasis. Hard.

"Mom," she wheedled, "Can you believe Dad said the d-word _in front of my principal?!?"_

"After all these years, Janey, nothing your father says really surprises me." Jane Louise stared at her mother, betrayed, so, after a moment, Jane equivocated, "however, I was a little surprised at his word choice."

As Jane Louise turned to give her father a vindicated glare, Jane continued, "Personally, I would've said _cock,"_ popping the _k_ obscenely with her perfect, perfect diction.

Jeff had never seen his daughter blush so hard. He worked very hard not to fall down laughing, but he failed.

 

_**~*~*~*~*~Eight Years Old~*~*~*~*~** _

The card was _huge_ , taller than Jane Louise. She had made it out of the box for their new refrigerator (their old one having come down with a set of "polka dot" holes all through the compressor thanks to a visit from some Jane's old Ukrainian friends [who would not be returning]), and it stood on its own so she could hide inside it.

She'd lavished on the glitter, coating her bright tempra flowers so thickly they didn't so much sparkle as shine in a constant glow. Puffy paint laid on with a heavy seven-year-old hand spelled out "GET WELL SOON" on the front, but that hadn't been what had Jane so perplexed.

Jeff made all the appropriate noises. He oohed and aahed and ran his fingers over the puffy letters before deliberately transferring some glitter into his hair. Jane was distracted enough that she didn't stop him from transferring some onto her nose, and Jane Louise laughed, but it didn't reach her eyes. Not enough, anyway.

Jane watched Jeff laugh with his daughter, his left hand pressed to his side to add pressure to the surgical dressing and splint his three busted ribs against the motion. When Jane Louise moved in for a careful hug, Jane opened the ridiculous card wide and raised it enough to bring the bottom edge into Jeff's line of sight.

His eyes widened over Jane Louise's shoulder.

Inside, below all the X-O's and glittery hearts, below even the scrawled "Jane Louise," his daughter had written _"PS You know you can tell me things, right? Ashley's brother has Lookei Leukemia and Jennas Mom got the heart sickness last month and we talked all about it. I can understand, really, and I won't get tooo upset"_

Patting Jane Louise's back, Jeff asked, "Sweetheart?"

Jane Louise pulled back enough to see her father's face, eyes shining in the hospital fluorescents. Jane resisted the urge to close the distance between them--just like her parents, Jane Louise didn't take well to ambush.

"What is it you think we're not telling you, honey?" Jeff swiped his thumb under one of her eyes; it came away wet, and he showed it to her. "I'm going to be fine," he said with a gesture at his abdomen. "This is just a scratch."

"But, Daddy, you're always getting hurt!" she cried. "You must have..." and she dissolved into his chest, body shaking with sobs.

Jeff schooled his wince even though Jane Louise couldn't possibly have seen it. He rubbed her back in wide circles and shot a pleading look at Jane, as close to helpless as Jane had ever seen him.

Jane moved in behind her daughter close and kissed her head. "What's going on in there, Janey?"

Into Jeff's chest, Jane Louise mumbled an indecipherable response. The only word Jane caught was "Internet," but it was enough. She gently turned Jane Louise around to look at her.

"Janey," she asked gently, "what have you been researching?"

Jane Louise hiccuped and tried to collapse into her mother's chest. Jane held her up, determination and compassion both writ large on her face. "Honey, what do you _think_ is going on?"

Janey snapped, shouting, "Stop pretending!" into her mother's face and eeling away. Crossing her arms so tightly it transitioned from defensive posturing into self-comfort, Jane Louise threw out "He HAS to be sick, Mom!" Her glare ratcheting up, she continued, "I'm not an IDIOT. All these hospital visits? NO ONE has this many 'accidents'."

She whirled on her father, the words spilling out of her now. "And it's not like you're a klutz, Dad!"

Jeff held his hands up, torn between reaching for her and showing himself harmless."Honey..." he started and trailed off, unsure how to continue.

"You have to tell me!" she wailed. "Is it hemophilia?" Pitch increasing with every word, Jane Louise continued, "Osteogenesis imperfecta? Thrombocytopenia from chemotherapy?"

When her daughter paused for breath, Jane crossed to her and slid down to her knees. "No, Janey," she said firmy. "No." She shook her head and took Jane Louise into her arms. "It is _nothing_ like that."

"It's work, baby," she said into Jane Louise's neck. "Daddy gets hurt at work."

"But..."

"No, Janey, I swear."

"We swear," Jeff said.

"Daddy gets hurt at work."

"Why wouldn't..." Smart. Their girl was so damn smart.

_In for a penny,_ Jeff thought. Catching Jeff's nod, Jane continued, "People try to hurt Daddy at work. On purpose." She caught Janey's face and tilted it to look in her eyes. "He's pretty good at ducking..."

"Hey! I'm excellent at ducking!"

Bringing Jane Louise back in so she could glare at Jeff over her shoulder, Jane continued, "He's right, he's very good at ducking, but sometimes they get through anyway."

Jane Louise pulled back just enough to see her mom. "Why would they want to hurt him?"

"Oh, honey, they want to stop him, not hurt him. They're just foolish enough to think that trying to hurt him is the easiest way to do that."

Squinting skeptically, Jane Louise watched her mom and waited for more.

Like ripping off a bandage, Jane clarified, "Daddy's a spy."

Under Jeff's interjected "A very good one," they both heard Jane Louise say, "And so are you." It most decidedly wasn't a question.

Jane closed her eyes just long enough to feel her blood pulse once, and then answered anyway, "Yes, I am."

"I just don't inspire people to want to hurt me as often as your father does."

"And she's even better at ducking," Jeff added.

"Spies?" Jane Louise asked.Her tone made Jane brace herself.

"Does that mean I'm a spy, too?" She asked breathlessly. "Is it like being Irish? Or Russian? Or Jewish? My friend..."

Jane pulled Jane Louise in again, the muffling deliberate this time. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Jeff rolling his dramatically, clearly wishing for a similar outlet. She mouthed, "This is your fault, you know," at him and gave him her best glare.

Jeff managed to keep from laughing out loud, but only just, and he was tasting an awful lot of iron before he was sure he wouldn't.

 

_**~*~*~*~*~Sixteen Years Old~*~*~*~*~** _

Jane Louise opened the kitchen door very quietly--so quietly, in fact, that she might as well have declared her premeditation to the whole house.

Jeff's smile grew wider. Squeaky hinges were not a product of neglect in the Blue home, and his girl really should have known better.

Smiling so wide he could feel it in his ears, Jeff said, "Hi, honey!" with as much brightness as he could cram into his voice. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

Her "friend" attempted to step out from behind her, but Janey blocked his advance. The boy's words cut off at a glance from her. If Jeff had been keeping score, the kid would have earned a point (okay, two, the extra for being willing to take her lead), but Jeff most decidedly was not in a point-giving mood.

"I thought you were at that conference today," Jane Louise said with a narrow-eyed scowl.

"Oh, I was," Jeff drawled. He gave an agreeable nod, but left his words to hang in the quiet that followed.

Breaking after an impressive 48 seconds, Janey let out a frustrated "Buuuut...?" and made a get on with it rolling gesture with her hands.

"Well," he offered agreeably, " I decided to work on a project instead," and gestured at the table behind him, moving to the side so they could see his "project."

The kid blanched like a bag of almonds.

"Are those... shotgun parts?" the boy asked, steady but for the creak in his voice on pa-arts.

Janey huffed "Dad!" and got off a truly impressive eye roll before performing a literal facepalm.

Ever helpful, Jeff said, "Some of them, sure!" He pointed at the left side of the table and added conspiratorially, "Most are from the wifey's HK PSG1 rifle, though. I can _not_ get that woman to stay out of the mud!" He picked up the barrel and wiped a streak off it. (The streak was too red to be mud.)

"DAD!" Jane Louise growled.

"Yes, sugarplum?" Jeff asked. His grin was maxed out, but he managed to up the twinkle in his eyes a notch.

The kid took a step back, tugging Janey with him--gently.

Jeff did not laugh.

Not until they'd shut the door behind them, at least.

 

_**~*~*~*~*~Not Quite Four Years Old~*~*~*~*~** _

The app had seemed perfectly innocent.

North Pole eXpress, offering conversations with and "real-time" tracking of Santa in simple language for the Pull-Ups set. Brilliant, he'd thought. Janey had loved it.

Jeff slammed his phone--and the fist he had wrapped around it--into the brick facade of the gas station. Bleeding freely, he strode into the convenience store to call first the CIA and then a cab, the residue of Jane's exhaust still bitter and deserved in the back of his throat.

By the time he caught up with her, it was all but over. Janey stood, rapt, ten feet on the other side of Jane, thoroughly engrossed in an animatronic window display of toy-making elves. The busy holiday crowd swirled around her as they made their way off to their wherevers.

Jane didn't notice Jeff, either, her attention bound to the dark-coated man standing just inside the alley with her.

Jeff was just close enough to hear the man say, "You wouldn't shoot me in front of your daughter," and the answering _thwap-thwap_ from Jane's 22.

As the bastard fell into the alley, Jane said icily, "That's what small caliber rounds are for." She leaned down to check his neck for a pulse. She didn't find one, of course.

_Too fucking quick_ , Jeff thought, but he probably would have done the same in her place.

Standing, Jane tried to fasten the pistol to its thigh holster but fumbled it. As she came upright, her eyes locked onto Jeff's, now just a few feet away. Her hands were shaking, so Jeff gently tugged the gun from her and pocketed it. Together, they turned to watch their daughter.

Janey was still transfixed by the display, shouting happily along with _We are Santa's Elves_ and swaying to the music.

Utterly fine.

Jeff's knees went out from under him and he went down to the pavement. Jane sat down next to him, pressed all along his side. It did not escape his notice that this blocked the body behind them from sight, but she also took his hand before calling Janey over to tell them all about her three-hour fugitive train ride to "rescue" Santa.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies if I got the Japanese (or anything else in that section) wrong. It is not a world I've ever been a part of, and Google can only take me so far. Further apologies for the tone in the last section--I tried very hard to keep this light for you, [Tiriel,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiriel) but the month I'm having kept trying to work its way in. I hope it suits anyway!


End file.
